Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of countries by spoken languages


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   keep. Ron Ritzman (talk) 00:55, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

List of countries by spoken languages

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I have been observing this for a while now and have come to the conclusion that the scope of this list is simply breathtaking. Considering that there are around 6,000 languages on this planet (many of which will have to listed multiple time given the current format), the box at the top asking for a "worldwide view" will have to stay there in perpetuity lest the whole page becomes unmanageable. I therefore think it should be deleted. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 21:28, 5 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Keep - Definitely encyclopedic and a valuable source of in-links. The tag at the top is ill considered and could easily be removed, in my estimation — this is certainly not an Anglocentric list. A strong need to keep this one for the good of the encyclopedia, in my view. Carrite (talk) 22:00, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep Five pillars says Wikipedia "incorporates elements of general and specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, and gazetteers." Denoting what language is spoken in which country certainly falls within the functions of almanacs and gazetteers. One complaint:It is ill referenced and full of original research and opinion. There are too many world languages listed as "minority" in the US, for instance. Is it based on there being one family, or a tiny community in a couple of cities? Some of these are unlikely to have even .001% of the US population who speak the language. For any language presently  spoken in the world, there are likely dozens or hundreds of persons who have come to the US who have some knowledge of it, so it is meaningless to selectively list it for some of these languages which are very rare in the US. There should be some rational cutoff, such as 1%, or even .1% to include any language as a "minority language" of a country. Some countries have "officially recognized minority languages," but that does not seem to be a meaningful criterion in the US. References should be required for every entry to satisfy WP:V and to avoid original research ("My Gramps and Gramma came from Oogerland and speak Oogrish, so I'll put in in Wikipedia as a "minority language.") Edison (talk) 23:11, 5 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Seems like a suggestion to be considered; maybe you could go ahead and write a lede/intro establishing this (admittedly arbitrary) cut-off; it will then have to be enforced, together with the need for sources. By the way, as of now, this is not a "List of countries by spoken languages" &mdash; it is a "List of languages by countries where they are spoken". Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 > haneʼ 00:34, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment - WOW!?! Good idea, but What is the inclusion critera, and where is its Cite's. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 01:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - This one demanded time to think about...but... Admittedly, it is WP:UGLY, and currently has very few Cites, but I do believe the citations are out there, and it is not as if there is WP:NOEFFORT going into finding and adding them. There will always be some Templates on this one, but it is encyclopedic and worthy of inclusion. Exit2DOS • Ctrl • Alt • Del 00:50, 7 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions.  — • Gene93k (talk) 02:26, 6 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Comment - I agree that there needs to be inclusion criteria and visible sourcing — if not for every line, at least for the main sources consulted. Carrite (talk) 03:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep. Encyclopedic and useful; the guideline Edison cites about gazetteer-type info would definitely seem to apply. Any problems with the article (such as the lack of referencing and of a clear cutoff for minority languages) can be solved by cleanup, not deletion. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 03:49, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Comment I went to work adding references for the US, and found a 1999 table of the 25 most common languages other than English in the US (Spanish #1 with 17 million speakers, Mon-Khmer number 25 with 127 thousand speakers. But Vietnamese is 9th, and is NOT EVEN LISTED IN THE ARTICLE!. I would add it, but I have no idea how it would fit into the classification scheme. Some variant of Chinese? And why is Amharic omitted? Many cities have Ethiopian communities. Many omissions and a general lack of balance. In a large US city, various people commonly speak a couple of dozen languages, not to mention dialects, within their neighborhoods and among themselves. Edison (talk) 04:45, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Yeah, some sort of guideline needs to be established for minority languages. Roscelese (talk &sdot; contribs) 16:17, 6 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Oh, please keep. It's obviously notable. If it's a logistics problem we could always use a sky lobby deal. like an A-Z links thing with categories of geography or somehing like that. -- 67 23:40, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

English language  D r e a m Focus  05:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep By rule of common sense alone. If its hard to navigate, then list the languages, and clicking on them link to sub-articles or open up things compressed like this:
 * America
 * England
 * A bunch of nations you never heard of, etc.
 * Keep and cleanup and reorganize if necessary. Encyclopedic list. Verifiable. A little overwhelming and needs a better presentation. Dzlife (talk) 15:54, 8 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Keep - An exceptional outline with relevant information. Northamerica1000 (talk) 09:32, 9 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Delete every cosmopolitan country with a sane immigration policy (think all of western europe and the british commonwealth) is going to have hundreds if not thousands of languages spoken, because as soon as you have a single immigrant family moving to the country, you have their language added to this list. A list of countries by the languages they legally recognise might be doable, but that's a completely different list and would require referencing for each of the language-country combinations. Stuartyeates (talk) 23:07, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.